


And the explosion...gave me girl abs?

by Chess_Blackfyre



Series: Adventures of the Savage Scarlet Hulk [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy is a Hulk, Gen, Heimdall is king of understatement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chess_Blackfyre/pseuds/Chess_Blackfyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I need a badass superhero name."</p><p>"Is that really necessary?"</p><p>"I survived a nuclear explosion, indulge me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the explosion...gave me girl abs?

Heimdall, as the watcher, heard all and saw all that went on in the Nine Realms. In his long life, he had though he’d seen everything. Heartbreak, betrayal, great love, great hate, mighty warriors and great champions.

 

But this…this was new. And like a chariot accident, he could not bring himself to look away.

 

“Is there something wrong, my friend?” Thor asked him.

 

If Heimdall was not Heimdall, he probably would’ve gone _‘by tHE ALL-FATHER’S POOFY WHITE BEARD, HOLY FUCKING YGDRISILL YOUR HIGHNESS YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THE SHIT I JUST SAW!’_ But instead what came out was: “Merely an interesting development on Midgard, my Prince.”

 

Odin may rule the Nine Realms, but Heimdall was king of understatement.

* * *

 

“…why are you playing that song?”

 

“She likes it.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“It says so on her Facebook page. And theoretically she should still be able to hear everything.”

 

“Auditory senses are the last thing to degenerate.” Erik consented. Wait…Erik?

 

Darcy shot up, sending her heart-rate monitor wild. “Oh my god.” Jane’s eyes widened.

 

“Where am I?” The assistant asked, a little breathless.

 

“Dr. Ross, get down here, she’s up.” Erik said into...something.

 

“What’s happening, what’s going on?” Darcy continued to ask. She was dressed in a zip-up bra and sweat pants, feeling a bit uncomfortable as she was _not_ wearing this last she remembered. In fact, she was a little blurry exactly what it was she last remembered.

 

Darcy tried to get out of bed, but Jane (her size belying her actual strength) was keeping her in.

 

“Just calm down, Darcy,” Erik asked. “Everything’s okay, you can relax.” She started to take deep breaths. “Also, you’re going to need to urinate in this.” Erik got a cup.

 

“But not this second.” Jane took it from him and set it down. And there was her stress again.

 

She jumped out of bed, ripping off the wires and tubes connected to her. “What the hell happened?”

 

“A Gamma Reactor exploded, you were caught in the blast.” Jane explained.

 

She looked at her reflection in the computer monitor. “And the explosion…gave me girl abs?” It wasn’t body-builder level, but her torso definitely felt…stronger. Definitely firmer.

 

“Your muscles should’ve started to atrophy, but instead they’re in a chronic state of cellular regeneration.”

 

“For how long?”

 

"Chronic."  


"No,  I mean, how long was I out?"

 

“A week,” Jane explained before getting back to giving her assistant a check-up.

 

“Wait, how are you this good at playing doctor?”

 

“I wanted to go into medicine, once upon a time.” Jane explained, checking Darcy’s pupillary response.

 

“Cool.” She looked around. “Since when did we have a heart rate monitor or…any of this medical stuff?”

 

“I built it.” Jane smiled.

 

“You—actually, you build your own equipment all the time, so why would I even be surprised that you can scrape together a heart monitor.”

 

“Dr. Foster can do a lot of things,” a new voice entered the conversation. Darcy turned, and was greeted by the face of a vaguely familiar brunette. “Welcome back, Miss Lewis.” The woman gave a soft smile.

 

"Um, hi." She gave a weak little wave.

 

"I'm Doctor Elizabeth Ross, but you can call me Betty. Let's take a walk, I'm sure you have a lot of questions." She gestured to the hallway outside.

 

"Okay," Darcy shrugged on a hoodie and followed the new woman. "Now, would you mind explaining what the heck is happening?"

 

“Well, the first thing that you should know is that I'm a cellular biologist, but I have a strong background in radiation, so you know I'm not talking out my backside when I tell you this. Dr. Foster and I were colleagues at Culver University. We've maintained a good working relationship, so I invited her out here to do some readings out here. This particular stretch of dessert is far enough away from anything that could interfere with any of her readings. The reason it's so out of the way is that it was used by the military to train and test explosives. I was under the impression that the place was long abandoned." She indicated the vaguely creepy building that they were currently walking through. "Unbeknownst to me, my father was planning on testing the first in a line of gamma energy reactors, if it worked, it would give the army a way to…go green, so to speak.” Gesturing out the window, Darcy saw a torched and lifeless wasteland.

 

“Jeez, what happened?”

 

“I wasn’t there, but according to the other scientists, and my dad, who was the General overseeing the project, the reactor went online and everything was going exactly as planned. Then, something went wrong. Either a misfire in the circuitry or the programming, but then the gamma output went off the charts, one of the containment rods fell out of alignment and…well.”

 

“Boom.” Darcy surmised.

 

“In a nutshell, yes. As you may recall, I was out with you and Dr. Foster at the time, but we separated. Like an idiot, I didn’t understand what was going on, but despite the fact you were already in the fallout shelter you ran out and threw me in seconds before the blast doors closed. The fallout wrecked havoc for miles, plants animals, microbes, almost everything died instantly either from the heat, the shockwaves, or the radiation itself. But not you. When the radiation died down enough for us to venture outside we found you, alive, despite everything.”

 

“Any idea how…or?”

 

“To be honest…I have absolutely no idea. Though, there is one thing.”

 

“What?” Did she have cancer?

 

“When we found you, you were a vibrant shade of red, and over six feet tall lying down.”

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

“…Come again?”

 

“Probably better to show you.” Pulling up her iPad, Dr. Ross showed her a picture, marked that night with a tall, red figure with a mess of wild black hair lying face-first in the desert sand, with Jane’s coat slung across her backside in a much appreciated attempt to preserve her modesty.

 

“Now that you’re awake, we need to run more tests. You’re still going through changes, there is so much that we don’t know.”

 

“But I feel normal, abby,” she poked one of her newly defined abdominal muscles, “But fine.”

 

“Hey,” Betty clutched Darcy’s shoulder. “You probably saved my life. Let me do this for you. Let me help you figure out what you are, and what this all means.”

 

“Fine, but no needles.” Betty raised her eyebrows. “Fine, minimalistic needles.” Darcy compromised.

* * *

 

**_About two hours later, in a stretch of desert._ **

“How’s it fit?”

 

Darcy walked out in the loosest things they could find, namely one of Erik’s t-shirts and baggy sweatpants. “Comfy, but I feel like white trash.”

 

“Well, if this works, you’ll be red trash.”

 

"Har-dee-har." Darcy intoned sarcastically.

 

“Ms. Lewis, while I am excited to test the full range of your abilities, I would caution restraint.” She nodded in complete agreement. “So the first thing we’re going to do is try and provoke a response. Dr. Banner’s transformations are usually triggered by the release of adrenaline, your body’s natural fight or flight response.”

 

For half a second, Darcy wanted to say ‘I went to Culver, you don’t have to baby talk me just because I’m not a science major’, but decided it was better she not get lost in the science jargon. “So, you wanna make me angry?”

 

“Basically, yes.”

 

“Okay, how are you—ow!” She rubbed her face which had just been punched by the cellular biologist. “What was that for?”

 

Dr. Ross blinked. “That usually works.”

 

“You thought you could get me angry by punching me?”

 

“Basically, yeah. Plus, you have a healing factor so it’s not like it’ll bruise.” The scientist tried to defend.

 

“Still hurts!”

 

“If I could get this back on track,” Erik interrupted. “There’s still the matter of Darcy transforming.”

 

“Maybe if I concentrate?” She suggested, not liking the way Dr. Ross was holding that clipboard.

 

The scientists shared a collective look. “Certainly couldn’t hurt.” Taking a step back as she took a deep breath, Darcy reached out to see if she could feel something…different about herself. _No, no no no…hey, what’s--ohhhh_

 

Jane wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when Darcy would transform, pop culture and horror movies making her think of the gore-wrenching twist and fusion of muscle and bone. This…was not that.

 

Darcy did expand and change, her eyes glowing red for a moment before that glow expanded all over her body. But instead of a werewolf, Jane was put more in mind of a metamorphosis, a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Betty was beside her in awe and scientific wonder. When it was done, Darcy stood tall, probably less than half a foot shorter than the Hulk, her skin now a vibrant red, hair black, and eyes glowing gold with green irises.

 

“Whoa,”

 

“Totally agree,” Darcy poked her girl abs again. Darcy Lewis now had an eight pack. Darcy Lewis is shredded. “I’m gonna need a codename.”

 

“Come again?” Jane blinked.

 

“You know, like a badass superhero name!”

 

“Is that really necessary?” Jane pondered.

 

“I survived a nuclear explosion, indulge me.”

 

“Red…She Hulk?” Erik tried. The three women gave him a look.

 

“Accurate, but not what I’m looking for.”

 

Betty did a thinking nibble. It was actually pretty cute. “How about…the Scarlet Hulk?”

 

“Scarlet Hulk…the Scarlet Hulk.” Darcy smiled back. “It works.”


End file.
